


Dead men tell no tales.

by eratedgore



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Afterlife, Drowning, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-01
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-16 12:04:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21270761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eratedgore/pseuds/eratedgore
Summary: Kotetsu dies, but only for a little while. After all, Tomoe firmly believed that cats had nine lives.





	Dead men tell no tales.

**Author's Note:**

> found this fic i wrote a while ago and decided i actually really like it. used the & relationship as well because it's not About kotetsu and tomoe being in love. brief mention of kotetsu & barnaby but nothing romantic

The sand is flecked with black, and feels frozen beneath his feet. The sky is dark, only a little light coming from beneath the horizon. The ocean is still and silent. Kotetsu feels as though he’s holding his breath, but his lungs aren’t straining so he guesses he must be breathing, somehow, if only a little.

He feels calm. Kotetsu thinks that he should be in pain, but doesn’t know why. He’s never liked pain. Never liked how it always found a way to come back into his life, when he felt that he had already suffered enough. Maybe he was being punished for thinking so, when others must’ve had it so much harder, and so he clamps his mouth shut whenever something hurts.

“Kotetsu.” He turns to face the oh so unbearably familiar voice.

She is there, wearing a plain, white sundress, standing on the sand, farther from the ocean than he is.

Even now, Tomoe is by his side, as she has always been.

Wondrous Tomoe, brighter than the sun. Bright and beautiful, even though there is no sun or moon to shine on them. Why she ever chose a man like Kotetsu, he’ll never know.

He should be happy to see her, and he is, but the feeling is tinged with melancholy. She smiles. He wants to cry at the sight. How many years has it been? Months, days, hours? Some part of him feels like he had been keeping track at some point, but now, together like this, it feels as though they had never parted.

The white foam of the waves reminds him of a wedding dress, a hospital gown, a white room, white sheets. He steps closer, and slowly takes her hand in his. She has no warmth, but maybe Kotetsu doesn’t have any either. They look out at the horizon, where the sky meets the sea. They had been to the beach once, when they were younger. It was a beautiful summer day. The water was cool, they got a great lunch at a small restaurant on the beach side, and Kotetsu got horrible sunburns that Tomoe giggled at for days. It’s like he can feel them even now, spreading across the right side of his chest (even though he could’ve sworn they were on his shoulders and back). Kotetsu can’t tell if the sun is about to rise, or is just setting, if it’s dawn or twilight. He turns his gaze to Tomoe again. She looks serene. At peace.

“What time is it?”

“That depends. Are you done being a hero already, Kotetsu?” An odd condition, but he thinks about it. He  _ had  _ promised to retire. His powers  _ were  _ going, and who knows how fast they would be gone. But retiring didn’t mean he would have to stop fulfilling his promise to Tomoe. It would just be done in a different way, right?

“I’m never finished being a hero,” he finally answers. The only answer he could give. Confident she already knew. Confident that he knows what she will say next.

“Then go,” Tomoe tells him. “Go back into the dawn.”

She lets go of his hand.

“I don’t have a boat.” Tomoe is silent. Kotetsu turns back to look at the neverending blue.

He must walk into the sea. He must let it in, let it fill him and drown.

The life of a hero is never easy. It is pain, and struggle, and it is the life he has chosen.

“Can’t you come too?” Kotetsu asks, reaching out his hand. Tomoe reaches out too, not to take his, but to point out.

“I crossed a long time ago, Kotetsu. Go.”

“What about you?”

“What about  _ him _ ?” Blond hair and green eyes. Tears and long eyelashes. White is Tomoe’s color, and red is  _ his _ , the color of blood, fire, anger, and yet the color of— 

Kotetsu clamps his jaw shut.

Once, Kotetsu had thought of nothing but going to see Tomoe again. Once, when he was dropping to the bottom of the rankings, and the only support he ever felt was when Antonio patted his back as Kotetsu cried into his drink, when he thought Kaede would be fine without him because it wasn’t like he ever came home anyways. These days, he’s preoccupied. Tomoe is  _ always  _ on his mind, always there with him, but Kotetsu isn’t really in a rush anymore to be by her side. He has others he needs to help. A daughter. A partner. He has to continue being —pretending to be, at this rate— a hero.

“I love you,” he says, almost desperately. “I’ve never wanted to leave you. Not then, not now.” An apology.

“No one wants to leave the people they love,” she says softly. Kotetsu wishes she would beg him to stay, then. “So are you going to leave him?” Kotetsu stares at the sand.

“...No.” Gaining the courage to look up into Tomoe’s eyes, he says, “He may not need me, but I want to be there for him.” She laughs, and the sound makes his heart ache.

“Then go! What are you waiting around for?” Kotetsu looks out into the distance, then back at Tomoe.

“Will you?” Kotetsu asks. “Will you be here for me when it’s time?” For a moment, she looks surprised, then as though she’s going to cry, and then she smiles.

“Of course.” Kotetsu slowly smiles back at her, then turns to the ocean. He tries to glance back, say one last thing—

but Tomoe is already gone.

He steps forward.

The sand slips out from beneath his feet (when had it started to move?), and a wave crashes into him with the force of a beam from a raygun, shot so willingly and with so much trust. He falls forward, and the ocean swallows him whole. Kotetsu flails. He’s never been good at swimming.

He tries to breathe. The ocean floods in and broken bones and seared flesh fill his lungs. 

He’ll never know any pain greater than going back to that dark hospital room, he knows this.

He tries to breathe.

The water sounds like a battle in his ears, guns firing and metal clanging and people screaming.

He doesn’t want to die.

Through the waves, he sees the sun rise above the horizon.

  
  


“We thought you had died.”

_ “What are you waiting around for?” _

“Are you kidding? I just passed out from all that pain! Did you even check my pulse?”

The taste of seawater remains in his mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> what are you waiting around for is the last thing tomoe said to kotetsu before she died : ( i think lol


End file.
